


someone's gotta do the Job

by unnecessary_databass



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: ive thought about this one for a really long time, the fanfic of fanfics, the inception of fanfics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-27
Updated: 2019-05-27
Packaged: 2020-03-20 03:02:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,294
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18983896
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unnecessary_databass/pseuds/unnecessary_databass
Summary: Let’s talk about Supergirl fanfiction for a second.Agent Summers has a decent life, she thought. She liked her DEO job, she'd been a trainee a couple years after Alex Danvers, and they were acquaintances, you could say. Friendly, even. And when she was caught a few times with some good fantasy reads on her lunch break, or with some books falling out of her locker, Alex passed the Job along her way when it became obvious they needed someone to do it.The Job, meaning, reading all the Supergirl fanfiction produced by the citizens of National City.





	someone's gotta do the Job

**Author's Note:**

> many many thanks to @storycharacter, for reading this through twice and encouraging me to write something I don't think is many people's style, but that's okay, because it's mine.

 

It starts with an elementary school writing contest one fall. Supergirl’s been out for maybe like six or seven weeks. Little girls everywhere are enamored. Adults are hesitant. You know she didn’t make the biggest and cleanest saves at first.

But there’s a prompt “what would you say to your hero, and what would they say to you?” and this little eleven year old knocked it out of the park. It happened to be that eleven year old, Laura, who Kara rescued from bullying when she was dressed like Supergirl. Kara told her she looked cool and said she was friends with all the nice girls.

Little Laura wrote one heck of an essay. Her teacher submitted it to the contest run by the mayor's office. And it won. And then a couple newspapers published it. Suddenly everyone had read Laura’s essay about what she would say to Supergirl and what Supergirl would say to her.

And then someone from CatCo’s account (it wasn’t Winn, Winn insisted) tweeted “what would YOU say to Supergirl if you could?” And it was all downhill from there.

It begins with single tweets. “You’re doing great sweetie!” “Seriously, what’s your workout regimen??” “Can you take me flying, pretty please with a cherry on top?” Questions about Kryptonian powers and culture. Thanking her for being an inspiration to girls everywhere. Asking if she liked human food (Alex didn't stop snickering for weeks at that one.)

And then someone tweeted a whole thread about it. They were a bit of a fan. They went a little overboard. All in the name of good fun! It was intentionally ridiculous. But they asked Supergirl hypothetically what she liked to do in her free time, and then imagined her fictional reply. It spiraled into “And that is how Supergirl became my girlfriend.”

It was pretty bad. People laughed. It became a meme. Whenever someone said something particularly outrageous, you could count on a teenager to reply with “Yeah, and that’s how Supergirl became my girlfriend”. It was great.

But then word started spiraling around that someone had written like, an  _actual_ Supergirl fanfiction. (“What do you mean  _actual_?” Alex hissed, and Winn definitely did not consider jumping off CatCo’s roof.) And they had posted it online.

The fic was about becoming friends with Supergirl. People clicked on it hesitantly only to see that it was like, an actual comic. Short. Genuine. It truly captured her essence. It was very sweet and non-presumptuous and the writer, once tracked down, was offered a job by a prestigious comic company.

Well, the next person that wanted to write a story about Supergirl saving them wasn’t as spot-on about her personality. Nor could they draw. And then there was a page full of Supergirl fanfictions.

And then it grew.

A year after saving the plane, there were 1864 fanfictions and counting. They seemed to multiply exponentially every day. There was a special page dedicated to them, built by a computer programmer who joked that her wife had bullied her into it. The page was discreet, and no one but National City citizens and a few (million) dedicated fans around the world knew about it. But it was big.

 

Jenna Summers didn't particularly mind being the Fic Reader for a while. It was a fun few half-days while she caught up on everything in the beginning. It was fun, mostly little essays with spelling mistakes that made her chuckle, guessing at Supergirl's day job (extra strong Construction Worker was a prominent option) or just how useful that laser vision was when facing down terrifying enemies. Several were so graphically written that she suspected they were true stories from a citizen's perspective, which she sort of thought was the point in the first place, but whatever.

The Job didn't begin because people had respectful admiration for Supergirl, though. It began because of a few written from the perspectives of some _very_ creative villains. Director J'onnz had briefed her with a perplexed, irritated sort of look on his face, explaining that while they were pretty sure these were just thought experiments from those physics professors down at the college, the ones that liked playing theoretical games with her powers in their classes (and, honestly, in their free time), the DEO had to be 100% sure these weren't actual villains publishing their plans just to stroke their egos.

Agent Summers was pretty sure no villain aiming to take down the Girl of Steel would actually be dumb enough to publish their evil plans, but you never know. She'd seen some pretty dumb stuff from villains aiming at Kara over the years.

And yeah, with the Job came a promotion in her security clearance. Agent Summers soon knew everything about Kara Zor-El. Like, _everything._ While the Job had technically originated to make sure no villains came after Supergirl, the new purpose soon evolved to make sure no one had guessed correctly at her secret identity. The Job also meant Jenna was at every mildly PR-related briefing.

RedK incident? Jenna got to break the news that while several people had some _delightful_ reactions to her, uh, temper tantrum? _Incident_ seemed like a better word there, huh-- the majority of the Supergirl fanfiction had simply… dropped off the map.

"Not dropped off the map!" Jenna hastened to correct. "Just like, the input has gone down by about 95%. No one's, uh, writing about the incident, or, um, you."

Kara dropped her forehead to the table with an alarmingly deep _thunk_. "I never thought I'd miss fanfiction about myself. Seriously, I mean I'm glad it's gone, but if that's how we know that people don't want me around…" she sighed deeply as she picked her head up and groaned as she realized she'd made a forehead-shaped dent in the table, "I'll take the fanfiction back."

The fanfiction had gone back up when Supergirl won back public opinion. Kara had barked out a laugh when Jenna had approached her hesitantly a few weeks later, after the Myriad incident had blown over and James wasn't hanging around the DEO so much (Jenna knew privately James was also out of the realm of romantic possibilities now).

"They don't seriously ship me with the Flash, do they?"

"It was pretty hidden behind the myriad of Myriad fics. Sorry? Bad choice of words?" Kara shook her head, chuckling. "But yeah, I'm playing catch up now and these are all going up now that people have recovered their individuality of thought. It seems a Mr. Barry Allen's identity is pretty safe. But the Flash's red suit goes pretty well Supergirl's blue, if you ask the citizenry."

Kara snorted before shaking her head and grinning. "Any that are just about our friendship?"

"Plenty, actually. Most of them, in fact. "

"That's awesome," Kara breathed. She paused, before asking, almost shyly, "Can you send me a couple of the good ones?"

"Only the best," Jenna promised, and Kara beamed. "There are even a bunch of kids' drawings posted on there."

Kara's smile got wider. "You're the best, Jenna. Thanks."

 

Jenna Summers had always been tech-savvy, and was a history major to boot. "It's important because I actually understand how the search functions in a database _work,_ unlike everyone else," Jenna had explained to Director Lane one day. Director Lane had nodded, looking slightly skeptical but leaving Jenna to her National City fan-built, crowd-sourced database of Supergirl fanfiction with nothing but a chuckle.

Jenna was _good_ at this Job, okay? She got very good, very quickly. Once the database was built, her job only got easier.

But then she realized something awful. Something truly _god-awful._

"What is it?"

"I, um, I missed something." Jenna said, practically shaking in her boots as Alex Danvers and Directors J'onnz and Lane both stared her down. It was only a week or so after she had sent Kara the Flash fanfiction (which she had titled "flash fiction" and received a line of laughing emojis from Kara in return). Things were _good._ Well. They had been.

"What did you miss?" Alex asked, her voice low and dangerous.

"It's nothing bad!" Jenna stammered quickly. "Well I mean, it _is,_ but--she's not in danger!"

Alex relaxed fractionally, though J'onn and Lucy were still stoic on either side of her, arms crossed identically. Kara stood off to the side, concentrating half on her phone, but Jenna knew from experience that her super-hearing was perfectly tuned in to the conversation.

"So what is it you missed?" Lucy asked carefully.

Jenna took a deep breath. Glanced at Kara. The words stuck in her throat. She opened her mouth, trying and failing to get them out. They wouldn't come. _Ironic, considering._ She winced at her own joke and looked at J'onn sheepishly, hoping he was actually reading her mind for once. _Please, please don’t make me say it in front of her._ She looked at him a little more meaningfully, and he narrowed his eyes. She thought she felt the slightest brush of consciousnesses, but she was probably just imagining it.

J'onn gagged.

It sounded like the esteemed Martian Manhunter was a cat coughing up a hairball. Jenna thought absently that Cat Grant would probably take this news with a lot more dignity and grace, but she was mostly absorbed with watching J'onn press his head in his hands and do his best to bleach his own brain. Lucy and Alex looked back and forth between Jenna and J'onn with alarm, and Alex seized Jenna's arm. In the background, Kara was clapping J'onn on the back, and Jenna winced again.

" _What_ did you miss? Tell me _now."_

"There's another page," Jenna whispered, wincing the whole way. Alex made an impatient _go on_ gesture with her hands, her grip tightening on Jenna's shoulder. "A page where people ship Supergirl, usually with… themselves. With, a, uh… with a passion."

"English, Summers," Alex demanded, her usual cool completely gone. "Spit it out."

Jenna took a deep breath and whispered as quietly as she could, squinting over Alex's shoulder in a desperate attempt not to see Kara's or Alex's reaction, "It's not things I should be reading in the workplace, ma'am."

Alex's eyes flew wide open, her grip on Jenna releasing in her disgust. Alex reeled back, and Jenna chanced a glance over at the rest of them to see J'onn sprawl forward and catch himself just before he hit the floor as Kara, still thumping his back, hit him too hard in surprise. Kara's eyes were just as wide as Alex's, and their gazes met in absolute shock for a split second before Alex turned on Jenna.

"Do you mean to tell me," Alex hissed menacingly, advancing step by agonizing step towards Jenna slowly, "That my little sister is featured in _erotica?_ Is that what you're telling me? Because," she said, a false, scary calm coming over her, "I don't want to get this wrong, and have 'explicit' in this case mean that there are just a few bad words in there." Jenna shook her head minutely. "So you mean to say," Alex continued, her voice rising with every word, "that my little sister, an _alien refugee_ from another planet who _saves lives daily_ with the powers she was given, has been turned into a PORN STAR??"

"Ah," Jenna said delicately, "Well, when you put it like that…"

Lucy looked up from where her face had been buried in her hands to lunge out and grab Alex, haul her back from where she was about to throttle Jenna, who hadn't moved an inch since she arrived. "Let's not shoot the messenger, Danvers. You never briefed her on expecting this one, none of us saw it coming. I assume the page was well-hidden?"

"Deep, deep web," Jenna said, nodding. "You don't find it unless you go looking and you know where to look."

"Okay, that's a good start," Lucy said consolingly, pointedly ignoring J'onn, who was still shaking his head while pinching the bridge of his nose so tight Jenna was worried it might come off soon, "How much is on there?"

"A couple hundred works, give or take. Maybe a million words. It's only a few weeks old."

Kara had let out a wheeze at _couple hundred_ and stood, stock-still, a few feet behind Alex, her face bright red and her eyes a million horrified miles away. Jenna looked away, a little queasy. She glanced back at Lucy. "How fast is it growing in proportion to the other page?"

"Umm," Jenna said, and her voice dropped to a whisper, "fast."

Lucy closed her eyes, arms still wrapped firmly around Alex's waist, and though Alex showed no more signs of wanting to strangle Jenna, she seemed like she needed the support after finding out her little sister was an inadvertent fantasy.

"There has to be something we can do," J'onn said, in a half-choked voice.

"Not really legally," Lucy admitted. "If they put a disclaimer, it's like, insanely hard. We can try cease and desist letters?"

Jenna shook her head. "They mostly used the Dark Web to put them up. You can't trace it when they used Tor browsers. If we had the NSA's top ten hackers, we might be able to send some viruses or something, but these people aren't really staying around from their IP addresses once they put them up."

"Invading people's computers to look at their documents seems insanely hard as well as illegal," Lucy mused, looking thoughtful, and J'onn coughed.

"Okay," he said. "Agent Danvers and I are removing ourselves from this issue. Director Lane, do whatever you and Agent Summers think is best. Let us know if there's an emergency. Agent Summers…" J'onn looked like he was having a slightly hard time meeting her eyes now. "Whatever you need to make sure this doesn’t come near Supergirl, you've got it. Keep it quiet, however you think is best. In the meantime, your job description doesn't change. And let's not talk about this ever again."

 

So Jenna Summers took nearly a week (J'onn excused her to do her work from home those days, probably so he didn't accidentally read her mind) to catch up on all her… ah _, more sensitive_ reading _._ Jenna came back to work with all the explicit fictions carefully categorized the same way the regular ones are (a lot self-inserts seem to feature as possibly-redeemable villains in the explicit ones, but other than that they aren't too different to catalogue) and a determination that she would never, ever, look Kara Zor-El in the eye again. She would protect her from afar. She was a guardian in the night. She was the thin typeface line between chaos and calm. She was--

"Oof, sorry, didn't see you there-- hey, Jenna."

"Supergirl!" Jenna could literally feel her face _flooding_ with heat as she met the blue eyes she had just spent _far_ too long reading about last week.

Kara frowned slightly, her expression confused, but light. "Uh, hi."

"…hi." Jenna felt frozen, glued to the floor, and a million different horrible things ran through her head--no. She shook her head. Bad thoughts. Gone. Kara was a real person, and probably professional enough that she could ignore that Jenna had to read so many fantasies starring _her_. Yup. This was why she needed to stay away.

"Hey, I didn't see you around last week. I wanted to say thanks for those Flash stories you sent, I laughed pretty hard at a couple of them, they gave him a pretty goofy personality in one of them. And I really liked the one that was clearly written by the little kid, it was super sweet. They were pretty funny after a long day."

Kara was smiling, genuinely, and Jenna could only focus on how hard she was breathing, or not breathing. She couldn't tell. Kara could probably see everything written on her face, she's not _dumb,_ she was there the whole time for that whole awful conversation. Jenna shook her head to clear it. "Yeah yeah, sure thing." There was nothing else to say. "Bye."

And with that, she ran away. Literally, ran.

 

"What's this?"

Jenna swiveled in her chair to see Lucy looking at her Name Board. Jenna had a lot of Boards to keep track of things. "The guesses of her names. I've seen a couple dozen who think she's secretly a dude, those are in the corner there, but so far the most common guesses are either pretty common names or way wacko ones. Plenty are Americanized versions of like, Russian names. A lot of others are Lord of the Rings style of fantasy names."

Lucy leaned closer to examine Jenna's precise handwriting and tallies. "Nice."

"That's just the ones that get multiple mentions. I've got a spreadsheet for permanent records."

"Sweet," Lucy grinned. "So what's going on this week?"

“Um, in terms of general trends, there’s been a sharp swing downwards in, uh, male erotica... of the, um, insertional variety, since someone made a point about, uh, conflicting biologies of the, um, nether region," Jenna cringed at her own wording, "Of the, shall we say, steel variety...”

Lucy raised an eyebrow. “Guys realized their junk would get crushed if they stuck it in the Girl of Steel?”

“Essentially,” Jenna said, biting back a grin. Lucy smiled encouragingly, biting back a smirk of her own, and made a go on gesture. “So women on women is stepping right up. There’s a discourse that’s positively delightful about what she might break—by which I mean the authors' notes in every new one that comes up gives their own take on it. Seems to me most have a fundamental misunderstanding but deep desire to know more about her strength.”

Lucy made a face. “What she might break? Like...”

“Different toys, mostly. Few enough are dumb to skip straight to fingers, though there’s a general consensus that tongue is probably fine.”

“Yeah," Lucy said, skimming a finger along the desk and tapping it on the notes Jenna had out. "Maybe don’t tell Alex any of this.”

Jenna leveled her with a _duh_ look. “Uh huh. On the bright side, women seem to much more deeply appreciate who she is and her service, it’s less about what she can do for them and more about how they can.. uh, worship her? Thank her. I meant thank. I think.”

Lucy snorted. “I think we’re gonna be friends, Jenna.”

 

Jenna entered her lab, still humming as she finished off her yogurt. There was one perk of this Job, and that's that she got her own office--and a spacious one. Winn had whined a little bit when he saw her office--Winn stops by often for the best fics of the week, he calls it Storytime with Jenna and Jenna must admit it is a good time--but she needs the space.

Corkboards and Blackboards covered every available inch of wall space in the fairly large room, and several of those next-gen clear whiteboards rolled around on wheels. Markers and chalk and tacks and hundreds of thousands of colored post its littered every flat surface. Filing cabinets formed a large island in the center, colorfully marked inside. A large monitor sat at the desk in the corner, firewall protected and specially upgraded by Winn for ease of long hours reading. Her rolly chair was nothing special, but there was a recliner in the corner that she snuck in one night.

It was all a bit ridiculous at first, Jenna thought, but J'onn _had_ given her approval for whatever she needed, and it wasn't like she made the DEO pay for the recliner. Besides, this stuff helped keep her organized. It was the reason Jenna could tell the Directors instantly the trends in what people were thinking of about Supergirl. And her Job had been upgraded to include responsibilities of monitoring _all_ press about Supergirl.

That was the reason Jenna had a big monitor on another wall, specifically programmed to record any and all footage mentioning or showing Supergirl. Tacked up fanart and instagram photos of her in action decorated the space next to prominent newspaper articles. If it had been published about Supergirl, Agent Summers knew everything about it. It was her literal job to obsess. Scientifically.

It may have only been half-full after three-quarters of a year of increasingly careful cultivation, but there was a reason the other DEO agents called her office the Library.

Jenna flicked on the lights--and froze, yogurt still in hand, when she saw Kara sitting in the recliner.

"What are you doing here?"

Kara blinked. Oh. Apparently she had been asleep on the recliner. It was a pretty nice recliner. "Hi," she mumbled, brushing her cape, which apparently doubled as a blanket (who knew?), off her shoulders.

"Hi," Jenna said, tense and unsure what to run and cover first. "What are you doing here?" she repeated, probably rudely.

"I'm sorry," Kara said, sitting up, eyes red. "I was just looking for somewhere comfortable to sit, and I did a quick x-ray and hoped whoever's office this was wouldn't mind…" her voice sounded small, and her hair was uncharacteristically dirty and tangled. There was a large smeared handprint of dried blood on her neck Jenna really, deeply and truly, _did not_ want to ask about.

"Is everything okay?" Jenna asked, despite her anxiety about Kara reading nearly any of the things that were in her office.

"Yeah," Kara mumbled, stretching and standing slowly. "Just a really hard couple days."

"Yeah, I know," Jenna said automatically, and Kara frowned at her, a little more awake. "I track you," Jenna said, with a jerk of her head towards the large monitor on the wall. "Public opinion and your record, I mean. It's a, sort of my whole Job these days."

Kara nodded listlessly, a blankness in her eyes. She focused slowly on Jenna's face. "Do you miss it?" she asked abruptly. "The field, I mean."

Jenna shrugged. "Not really. They call me in when they need more agents going somewhere these days. I get to train an hour or two everyday but enjoy the library side of things, which I really missed when I first took this job. I'm actually taking a class at the college about library sciences, it's awesome." Kara nodded again, eyes a little distant, and Jenna paused. "Do you," she hesitated, hating herself. She had been successfully avoiding Kara for _months,_ and she suspected Kara knew why and wasn't eager to confront her on it. "Do you want to talk about it?"

Kara looked at her morosely. "Are you sure?" she asked, and a glimmer of a half-smile crept onto her face, and it was fragile, but Jenna missed the pang of the friendship she had pushed away nonetheless. "I wouldn't want to make you uncomfortable after all you've read about me."

And dammit, Jenna Summers wasn't a _monster,_ so she shook her head immediately. "Sit down, Kara. It's not about me being uncomfortable. It's about _you_ being uncomfortable. I avoid you because I want to protect _you_ from the wacko crap creeps on the internet write."

"Is it that bad?" Kara asked tentatively, sitting back down and moving the recliner into a more vertical position, sounding like she didn't really want to hear the answer.

"No! Not at all." Jenna tossed her yogurt container in the trash and closed the door behind her, shaking her head again. "It was just an adjustment, realizing that kind of stuff existed about someone real. Like, fictional characters, it's fun and it's a good exercise and it's whatever, they're not real, but you _are,_ you know? And since we have to read it for security reasons, I'm glad that only one of us is traumatized by the spelling mistakes in explicit situations." Kara chuckled grimly, and Jenna smiled genuinely at her. "But most of it is actually really sweet. Makes me remember every day why we work so hard to have your back."

Kara looked up at her, eyes suspiciously red-rimmed. "Really?"

Jenna made a split-second decision. "Yeah. Here, I know I haven't sent you anything in forever. I got this really good one the other day, hang on." And Jenna booted up her computer, sitting down at her desk. "It was called Supergirl Saves the Day Again, very original, I know. The author's notes said it was true, and I'm pretty sure the kid who wrote it was in high school… we get a lot of the stuff that shouldn't really be called fanfiction, more like published journals or something, but… Here." Jenna found it in seconds, and before she could be self-conscious about reading Supergirl fanfiction to Supergirl herself, began to read. "It was a cloudy afternoon when the whole world started to shake…."

Kara sniffled suspiciously when Jenna finished with "she smiled that blinding smile at me, and I knew I was totally safe. Supergirl flew away with cement-cracking power, and I watched her go. National City was safe for another day under her watchful eye."

"God," Kara said with a watery chuckle. "Maybe that kid should be my PR person."

"Questionable grammatical choices and all," Jenna agreed. "They make you look pretty good."

"Is there more like that?" Kara sounded curious and a little hopeful.

"Tons." Jenna promised. "That's why I like this Job."

Kara rolled her head over on the recliner and smiled at Jenna. "Thanks," she whispered, and Jenna smiled back.

 

"Hey," Kara knocked on her door a week later.

"Hey," Jenna parroted, looking up from her special Supergirl-fic Kindle to see Kara in the full regalia, looking much better than she had last week. Her neck was thankfully clean of any bloody handprints. It had been a much better week for Supergirl. Jenna would know. Jenna waited, but most of the awkwardness she had felt around Kara had thankfully faded away.

"I had an idea," Kara said, looking half-apologetic.

"Do tell," Jenna said cautiously, standing up from the recliner.

Kara stepped into the room one hesitant shuffle of her boots at a time, sheepish and thoughtful. Jenna waited patiently, remembering Kara's hesitancy when it came to asking for anything. "What if you were my PR person?" she asked, leaning against the island of filing cabinets. Jenna blinked. "Like, behind the scenes," Kara explained. "You already know everything, just, what if you took on a few more parts of it, like, helping control the narrative?"

Jenna opened her mouth slowly, her wheels already spinning. "I think," she said slowly, starting to grin at Kara, "that this is going to be _fun."_ Kara smiled.

 

So Jenna became Supergirl's PR person. Her behind-the-scenes PR. And first on the docket was meeting with CatCo about the image of Supergirl according to the publication.

Cat Grant herself saw Jenna.

Cat was, Jenna decided approximately six seconds after meeting her, a woman of power and terror, and they were both tools she wielded _very_ well.

"So, Agent Summers," Cat said, sitting down on the couch opposite and crossing her legs elegantly, "Explain to me your presence on my schedule." Cat pulled a handful of m&m's from the glass in her hand.

Jenna swallowed and glanced to Kara, who was sitting in one of the chairs opposite the desk, supposedly taking notes. "I'm here on behalf of the people who work with Supergirl." One of Cat's eyebrows raised. "And we'd like to give you some feedback--" Kara coughed, and Jenna swerved, "We'd like to brief you on the image Supergirl has with the public we have observed so far, and discuss some, um, _preferences_ of hers moving forwards."

Cat leaned back. "You think I don't know what people are saying about the Girl of Steel? You think I've been portraying her poorly?"

"Of course you do, and of course you haven't," Jenna said quickly. "We just want to cover our bases. We'd rather have communicated double than assume we told you something we hadn't. And god forbid it be information you could have needed or wanted to know."

Cat chewed on an m&m, and Jenna chanced another glance at Kara, who was chewing her lip while her pencil slowly slid to a stop on her notepad. "Alright, Agent Summers," Cat said, leaning forward again. "Tell me what you think I need to know about our girl."

Jenna took a deep breath. "Have you heard of fanfiction?"

(One and a half minutes later, Cat's raised eyebrow and starkly calm and horribly unsurprised, "Do you mean to tell me people are writing erotica about Supergirl?" made Kara turn redder than her cape. It was her considering head tilt and accompanying "Well, I won't pretend she doesn't have her appeals," that made Jenna forcibly swallow down vomit and she didn't dare look at Kara.)

 

"I think that went well," Jenna said, not twenty minutes later, as Kara walked her to the elevators.

"By Ms. Grant's standards, that was quite civil," Kara agreed, every word sounding somewhere between shaky and relieved.

"I think we almost lost her when I introduced shipping concepts, but pulled her back in when we stroked her ego with the _CatCo is the single biggest outside influencer in how people view her._ We were probably on shaky ground with her when we hit how much it affects little girls, but I know she'll call in Supergirl to chat with her about this whole careful-directing-of-Supergirl's-image thing, so if you just play along and act all grateful and moral, it'll probably go really well. Plus," Jenna noted, shifting her binder, "She might not have been surprised about the porn, but she doesn't want that out in the public, linked with CatCo's ideal of her."

Kara nodded, punching the button for Jenna, who still had a big binder tucked under her arm, despite firmly refusing to send Cat the link to the explicit page. If Cat wanted to read deeply scarring fictional erotica about a real person, she could go searching for it herself. "It should help with making sure everyone's on the same page about keeping the image clean."

Jenna bit back a grin. "Of course."

Kara shook her head, looking like she was trying not to laugh. "Don’t say it," she warned sternly.

Jenna held up her hands, laughing just a little. "I wasn't going to say anything!"

Kara chuckled. "Just keep them far away from me and we won't have a problem, Summers."

"Funny, your sister said the same thing."

Kara sighed, still smiling just a little as the elevator arrived and Jenna stepped in. "How you managed to make that sound dirty, I'll never know."

"It's a gift," Jenna informed her seriously, and Kara grinned.

"Hey," Kara added, tilting her head and catching the elevator door before they could close. "Thank you for doing this. Seriously. I know it's extra work on your plate, but it really… it really means a lot to me."

Jenna felt her heart melt a little bit. "Anytime, Supes," she said, smiling softly, and Kara grinned before letting the elevator slide shut.

 

 

They weren't always awkward to share.

Winn observed as much, lying in Jenna's recliner a couple weeks later.

"That one you read me last week, where Supergirl pulled her out of an abusive home?" Winn shook his head. "I know we looked into it, and the guy was an adult, he was like, writing retroactive therapy almost, but like, it felt so… real? You know?"

Jenna nodded. She had emailed that one to Kara, who had hugged her tight without a word the next day. "It was like a prayer," she agreed. "A wish that she had been there earlier, but like, saving himself. Saving his mind from the trauma he might have now by imagining it differently. She was just an agent in that story, a figure for show. Like, the embodiment of the strength he has now."

"It was amazing," Winn said softly, nodding. He tilted his head thoughtfully. "Have there been any more like that?"

"Some," Jenna admitted. "Maybe twenty or so? It's not a common topic."

"Have we always looked into them?"

"I don't think so, actually," Jenna said, realizing it all at once, alarm flooding in. She looked up sharply at Winn. "What if they weren't all--what if they weren't all out? What if they were a cry for help?"

"Where are they?" Winn asked, his voice just as urgent.

Jenna rocketed off her chair. She skidded in front of her filing cabinet island, frantically yanking open the drawers labeled _Under 10, 10-15,_ and _16-18._ Her thumb traced down the rows rapidly, pulling the folders labelled "In-Home Rescues" from each. Winn stepped to her side, his fingers flying on his tablet.

"Okay," she said, dropping the thankfully thin folders on her overlarge desk. Each one was filled with printouts of works of fiction--one page for each, filled with the date published, the title, anything the author had chosen to disclose about themselves or the notes, and the first few paragraphs. Plenty of more popular fictions had Jenna's scribbled notes in the margins of _Looked Into, No Follow Up Necessary_ or _Over 20k Hits._ Most of these had no post-its. Some were color coded with a thick marker or two across the top, Red for Concerning or Triggering Topics, Orange for a Bad Ending, Green for Send To Kara, Blue for Publicized by something other than the fanfiction archive, Purple for a writer with more than a couple works, and Yellow for Accompanying Artwork. There was more than a few of Pink, for the Explicit works, or as Jenna called them, the _Never Let Alex See_ 's. Black was for deeply concerning, either in terms of someone guessing alarmingly close to Kara's habits, or another situation that required the DEO's immediate attention. Like one written from the perspective of a well-informed supervillain.

(Yellow and Green were Jenna's favorites. She hated the Oranges. And at the moment, she wasn't particularly fond of the Reds.)

Jenna pulled the _Under 10_ folder open first, thumbing through the half-dozen works. Three of them were coded Red, and one had an Orange as well. Jenna scanned them desperately.

"Why are there no notes?" She asked desperately. "Why didn't we look into this?"

"How do we know they were actually written by kids under ten?" Winn asked.

"Look at the language," Jenna said, pointing out the first few paragraphs. "Even when this kid is writing about his father yelling at his mother behind closed doors, his grasp on language is elementary at best. You can practically hear the special dotted lined paper from first grade."

"How did they get it online?"

"Either someone helped them or they're better at the internet than they are at language, which is totally likely in this day and age," Jenna answered, absently, already rifling through the other folders. The ages 10-15 had about twice as many, but only four Red works, and two of them were marked with a bad ending. The ages 16-18 folder had three times as many works, and eight or so of them were labelled Red. Most of them also had an orange stripe underneath.

Jenna yanked the ones with a bad ending out first and shoved them at Winn. "Can you trace these? Track down the authors? We can pay a quiet little visit, or, I don't know, something?"

"Yeah, of course," Winn said. "But I don't know what we'll do, it's not exactly in the DEO's jurisdiction--"

"We'll give them to Supergirl," Jenna said, desperate, pulling all the other Red-labelled works out. "These second. The ones with the sad endings first. Youngest to oldest. I'm going to go recheck if there are any others we might have missed, and keep brainstorming about what we could do. Tip the cops, social services, I don't know. Kara can help, Winn, we have to do something."

"Of course we do," Winn said instantly, softly, and Jenna remembered all at once that Winn had been in foster homes most of his life. Remembered why his dad was in prison. She felt a wash of guilt and pushed it aside. Winn would help.

"Thank you, Winn," she breathed. He smiled softly, and shifted the small stack of papers in his arms to give her a hug, solid and steady.

"We'll do what we can legally, and if more needs to be done, we'll get it done with or without the people with badges, okay?" he promised. "We're not leaving anyone where they'll be hurt."

 

Out of the twenty-two works Jenna had found to be concerned about what was lurking behind the fiction, Winn was able to trace the authors of twenty-one. Then came the tricky part.

"We can't just stomp in there," Lucy said, her hands clenched on the table. "If we do, the parents can get them back in court. That's not to say the parents are actually abusive, too. We have to verify if they are first."

"I could listen in," Kara volunteered, carefully winding her fingers together instead of breaking something else. "Be flying over by chance and happen to hear a child in need of help."

"When?" Lucy asked. "That'll work on maybe five of these kids, where it seems to have a regular schedule. I'm sure you can intimidate some of them, too, into being better--like they aren't abusive, just a little rough around the edges and need a splash of cold reality to show them they're not being good to their kid and are headed down a dangerous road. But I don't want to take that chance. No. We have to do something a little more by the book if we want this to stick."

So they went to the National City Police.

Supergirl and Winn and Jenna and Lucy. A couple convincing conversations later and Jenna found herself nodding as Winn handed over her precious records, written all over in IP and street addresses.

"We'll handle it as best we can," one cop promised, and his partner, a short woman named Maggie Sawyer, nodded.

"And we're pretty damn good at getting this stuff done," she said, and Kara gave a tense half-smile. They're tucked away safe in an interrogation room with extra chairs, and they had ushered Supergirl through a back entrance. "But Supergirl, if you _do_ hear something as you happen to be flying past…" Maggie tilted her head. "Don't hesitate to call. Once you hear, we can go. And so can you. All you have to do is make sure to report it."

"Flying past, more like hovering over," Kara mumbled, crossing her arms.

"I don't have a single problem with that," Maggie said. "Just don't let them see you observing, then we might hit a few snags."

Kara's smile was a little cold. A little Kryptonian. "They won't see me," she promised, and Maggie's answering grin was one of a friendship that didn't need to be cemented by anything more.

 

Within two months, twenty of the twenty-one young authors had been pulled out of their correctly-assumed-to-be-abusive homes, in some cases along with siblings or a parent. In her listening, Kara had rescued six more kids and three adults. The wealth of arrests of abusive parents or spouses had prompted a flurry of news articles on the crackdown against domestic violence. Programs for trauma, for marriage, and for parental counseling sprung up in its wake.

"National City is trying," Kara said one day, smiling softly down at an article on the trends, penned by Cat Grant herself. Kara wanted to write someday, Jenna knew. "They're trying to make sure that I don't have to go and fix this one alone. They might have been scared by Supergirl going in and making an example of the abusers, but for whatever the cause, they're trying. They've woken up to this."

"You did a lot of good," Jenna said, just as softly.

Kara looked up and met her eyes, putting a gentle hand on her shoulder. "No," she said quietly. "You did. This was you." Kara waited just a moment, tilting her head, making sure Jenna got the message, and Jenna nodded, her throat thick with tears. "I don't know how you figured it out," Kara added, looking impressed.

Jenna shrugged. "Fanfiction is therapeutic. The concepts of self-insert writing and all that, it's not a bad thing by any means. We all need to get our emotions out somewhere. It's just nice to have someone looking out for us as we do."

Kara smiled gently. "It's still amazing. But I'll let you get to your meeting with Winn," Kara said, releasing her and winking. "I hear the two of you are working on an algorithm that will more correctly guess the age of kids writing." She was gone with one more smile and a swirl of her cape.

Jenna really, really loved this job sometimes.

 

 

Jenna started reading fanfiction to some of the more (hopefully) morally redeemable villains. The ones about them.

"It's an exercise in rehabilitation," Jenna pleaded, trying not to sound too pleading, chasing after J'onn as he walked somewhere else. Her cousin had gotten locked up for something dumb last week, and it had opened her eyes _, again_ , to the prison system. The one the DEO had, this time. She knew Kara had been working on J'onn, but J'onn's fear of there being bad aliens wasn't one that was invalid--the man came from a planet where the Martian Nazis had essentially murdered half a planet, of course he was cautious, and quick to protect, often with excessive force. They just had to find the middle ground where those who weren't actually a threat weren't the ones locked up.

"Explain, Agent Summers," J'onn said gruffly.

Jenna glanced at his skin, barely a half a shade different than hers. "Look, people get locked up whether or not they deserve it all the time. You know this. You see this. And people, they see it. Nothing anyone does is invisible. Those kids Supergirl pulled from abusive homes last year? Others saw it. Others asked for help. Others got better. What we do, it has an impact. And now those kids are out there helping recognize when others need help. And I know you know that not everyone we have locked up should be here. I _know_ you know that," Jenna insisted, knowing she was toeing the line and barreling forward anyway. "But the trouble is telling who _should_ be, right? Plenty deserve to be locked up."

"Where are you going with this?" J'onn asked, stopping abruptly and shifting to look at her head-on.

"Let us try," Jenna begged. "Let us tell them stories. About themselves, about people like them. Let us see. If they feel bad when they know what they've done. If they can be redeemed. Because I bet you that most of them can. Please, Director," she said, inching closer. "You've seen what people who look like us are framed as. We lose control for one second in some places, and we're deemed irrational, emotional, dangerous, violent. Imagine how bad it is for an alien when the world is out there trying to decide if they deserve rights or not? We've been there. We have to help them."

J'onn was on the edge. "You really think the stories will help?"

Jenna drew herself up. "I think it's somewhere to start."

J'onn was silent for a long, considering moment. He nodded. "Then start."

 

There was fanfiction about Phorians and Infernians, causing destruction. The inhabitants of the cells nearly all winced and flinched when they heard of their destruction, told from the eyes of teenagers.

"I'm sorry," a Calanorian with blue hair whispered, head in her hands and rocking back and forth. "I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to, I didn't know, I didn't mean to, I don't know how to stop, make it stop, make it _stop, please--"_

Jenna looked up at the security camera in the corner of the Calanorian's cell. "Okay," Jenna said softly.

The Calanorian took several steadying, deep breaths, gathering herself. "I didn't know," she moaned into her hands. "I didn't know my powers worked like that here. No one told me."

"What if we could find you someone to help?" The Calanorian looked up at Jenna with something like hope in her eyes, and Jenna felt a new resolve gather in her.

 

"Just tell them what they should do!"

"I don't see how this would be an effective use of resources--"

"Kara had Alex!" That made J'onn listen. Kara wandered over, curiosity written all over her face, and Jenna barely suppressed a victorious smile. "Kara, would you ever have made it on Earth without people who understood your abilities and how to help? Would you ever have been able to fit in, to not hurt people?"

Kara shook her head without hesitation. "Never. They saved me."

"See," Jenna said, stepping closer to J'onn, who looked half-pained, like he knew he was going to lose another fight. But he also looked half-curious, half-intrigued and hopeful about another one of her ideas. "They need someone to show them. They need _teachers_ , not a jail. They don't have to be dangerous. But _Kara_ is dangerous as hell, and she's our greatest protector, our biggest symbol of hope. Let her," Jenna pleaded, vaguely noting Kara's suppressed, glittering smile behind J'onn's shoulder. "Let her be a symbol of hope for them too. For their journey."

J'onn sighed, huffing out air at the ceiling as he planted his hands on his hips, and Jenna pulled out her last points to push him over the edge. "You saw that Calanorian," she said insistently. "You saw her regret. Her sorrow. Her guilt. Don't make her feel that. Don't make more of them feel that when they shouldn't, when they didn't mean to, didn't understand. Supergirl stands for hope, help, and compassion _for all,_ and I think it's time that we as her team backed her up on that. And, uh," Jenna rocked back on her heels, poorly imitating Kara's sneakier look, half-puppy dog eyes, and Kara disguised a laugh as a cough behind J'onn, "In the long run, it'd cost less if we didn't keep them here."

J'onn leveled her with a look. Jenna looked right back. Kara cleared her throat, smile brilliant and excited. J'onn sighed. "Agent Schott!" Winn came scrambling over. "It would seem," J'onn said, and--was that a _smile?_ "The DEO has a new trajectory. Give Agent Summers whatever she needs. Run final approvals by Assistant Director Danvers, and get her input every step of the way. I'll be checking in regularly."

"Sir, yes sir," Winn said, grinning. J'onn bit back a smile, more obvious this time, and walked away, clapping Winn on the shoulder. Winn looked at Jenna, excitement lighting up his frame. "What'd you do this time?"

"You're gonna love it," Jenna promised.

 

Winn looked up stuff about aliens' home worlds, found their cultural values and best ways to communicate with them, with Kara's and J'onn's help. They found aliens with similar powers, who had made it on Earth peacefully for a while, and connected those staying in the DEO with them. Alex gave instructions to the older aliens on how to mentor a new alien refugee. Other agents learned how to help so responsibility was spread among those who wanted to help. And slowly, more and more aliens were released from the DEO's custody into the care of those who could genuinely take care of them. The DEO Rehab program was soon in full swing, and Jenna had never felt prouder to work there.

"Speaking of work," Kara muttered, "Any ideas for what I'm going to do for a job?"

"What?"

"Ms. Grant sort of," Kara winced, "Fired me."

" _What?"_

"Not like that!" Kara said. "I'm just not going to be her assistant anymore. I'm sort of going to, uh, think about what I could offer CatCo?"

"Wow," Jenna said, leaning back in her rolly chair. "She really likes you, huh?" Kara blushed, and Jenna smiled. "Chill, Supes. Not like that. So, you've come to the archive for some inspiration?"

"Something like that," Kara said, stretching. It was weird to see Kara with her glasses on in here. She really was here as Kara Danvers, sweater and navy pants and all. "I just figured, you know, there are probably, like, a million recommendations of what I could be doing that are all in here." She shrugged, winding her fingers together nervously. "Where better to start?"

Jenna grinned. "Kara Danvers, you have come to the right place. Stay there." She got up and pulled open a drawer in her filing cabinet island labelled _Guesses by the Lists._ She pulled out a thick folder with the marker _Careers_ and handed it over to Kara. Kara opened it hesitantly, her frown turning to an expression of astonishment as she faced the first page.

"Jenna," Kara said, her mouth not closing, "There are like, twenty-five guesses on this page, all referenced where they are in each fic… there've gotta be…" There was a quick gust of wind as Kara thumbed through them at superspeed, "A hundred and ten pages in here."

"I know," Jenna said proudly. "I'm just that good." Kara stared, and Jenna relented. "And Winn wrote me a program."

"Still," Kara muttered. She flipped through them. "These are all guesses of what I do?"

"Plenty are repeats," Jenna assured her, pushing the drawer shut and motioning Kara to sit in the rolly chair while she pulled up her spreadsheets. "Those are all specifically named and recorded guesses at your profession, and organized by date and how old the author is, what type of story it was, so you can get a sense of how serious the guess was. Like, if it was a nine year old in an essay contest, versus a thirty-two year old writing porn about you coming home to them after your hard day working two jobs." Kara winced. "Sorry, that was insensitive," Jenna apologized, wincing herself as she realized her mistake. _This_ is why she started avoiding Kara in the first place. Kara waved it off. Jenna shook her head to clear it. "My bad. Okay, but _this--"_ she put the sheets she had been finding up on the large wall monitor, "This is the best primer you'll get."

"Whoa," Kara breathed, placing her thick file on Jenna's desk and standing, moving closer to the big screen, entranced. She eyed the colorful graph, each hue labeled with a general field. She looked back at Jenna. "This many people think I'm a doctor?"

"Saving lives is your night and day job, baby," Jenna said, grinning cheekily, and Kara chuckled.

"And a…" Kara tilted her head. "Firefighter? Cop?"

"Fightin' crime all the time," Jenna quipped in reply, and Kara gave a small laugh, eyes still glued to the screen.

"Marketing executive, huh? Manager… food service worker, haha, construction worker…" Kara's lips moved soundlessly as she took in more of the options. After a long minute lost in its glow, she turned to Jenna. "Is there any way you can categorize them based off what I could do at CatCo?"

Jenna considered. "I could do… white collar?" Kara nodded hopefully, and Jenna punched in a few commands. An altered graph appeared on screen, and Kara stepped back to admire it. Jenna chuckled. "I think I'll take my break. Yell if you need anything."

She was halfway out the door before Kara came back to herself enough to yell after her, "Thank you!"

(In the end, Jenna was pretty sure it was Lena Luthor who convinced Kara to be a reporter. But she was flattered that Kara's first stop was her nonetheless.)

 

 

Once Kara had a more prominent position in CatCo, Jenna had to get over how much porn of Kara she read weekly to eat lunch with Kara once a month, to scope out the CatCo scene. The official purpose was to guess if anyone there was writing fics based on her everyday behaviors at CatCo, now more people knew her name as a reporter.

"Andrea from Accounting could know," Kara mused, chewing on her salad slowly.

Jenna resisted commenting on how it was probably Lena's influence that she was voluntarily eating a salad. "What makes you say that?"

"She always makes really intense and prolonged eye contact," Kara muttered. "And always seems to have something super heavy for me to move around when I'm down there."

Jenna waited, but Kara didn't seem to have anything more than that. "I think you should talk to your sister about that one," she said carefully. Kara frowned in question, and Jenna sighed. "Kara, I hate to be the one to break this to you, but you're sort of, uh, buff." Kara blushed slightly. "I know it's not exactly," Jenna glanced around to make sure no one was listening in, "Not exactly human muscle you're working, but it looks like it, okay? I'm pretty sure Andrea is flirting with you, not trying to tell you she's onto you about, you know, _that_."

Kara blushed a little deeper. "Right," she mumbled. "Well, she's the only one I was concerned about."

Jenna grinned. "I know you probably get a lot of people flirting with you, but we only need to be on the lookout if they start making observations or comments on your behavior or absence."

"Observations like what?"

"Like, you adjusting your glasses."

"I adjust my glasses all the time," Kara said, adjusting her glasses self-consciously, and Jenna smiled.

"Yeah, but like, if someone starts mentioning it? Or narrowing their eyes or looking suspicious every single time? That's someone I need to look into."

"Got it," Kara said nodding. "Hang on, do people think Supergirl hides behind glasses?"

"Only a few thousand of them," Jenna said, off-handed, and Kara's eyes widened comically. "It's a common thing!" Jenna said quickly. "But honestly, we've done a survey, and you look really different with them on and off. It's the way it changes the shape of your face, and the hair is a huge help too. And having hung out with both of you, most of it is attitude, honestly."

Kara slumped in her chair. "Don't get me wrong," she said morosely, "I'm super grateful for you, but you're making me think harder than I want to about this."

Jenna smiled. "Don't worry. It's my job to cover the angles you don’t have time to. Just tell me if anyone's acting suspicious and I'll take it from there. We've got your back, Supes."

Kara smiled back. "I know you do."

 

Jenna has Supergirl's back so much that the Job falls to her to tell Lena Luthor about how she was featured immediately every time she was rescued. And how she appeared in sixteen BDSM fics (which all had suspiciously similar writing styles, so it was probably just one person) with Supergirl in under a week.

"Tell me again," Kara said, riding in the elevator up to the L-Corp top floor with Jenna and Lucy. "Tell me again why we have to tell Lena these things."

"Because we don't want someone catching her off-guard with these things," Jenna repeated patiently for the twelfth time, and Kara nodded. "And so that if she recognizes any suspicious patterns in the narratives, she can identify any potential threats. It's a matter of prudent preventative measures." Kara nodded, taking a deep breath, and Jenna put a hand on her shoulder. "We're just covering our bases, Kara. It'll be fine. You don't even have to be here for it if you don't want to, Lucy and I can do this."

"You really don't have to be," Lucy said softly, and Kara shook her head, building up her resolve.

"No, I can do this. I should do this. I'm the one who told her who I was. I'm supposed to be her friend, not someone dumping this on her lap and running away. I shouldn't be making her have to deal with this alone."

"Excellent," Lucy said, a wicked grin replacing her soft smile, and Kara rolled her eyes. "This should be _fun."_

"You don't get out enough," Kara mumbled as the elevator doors opened.

"I most definitely do not," Lucy confirmed. "Come on, I've been looking forward to this all week."

Lena Luthor greeted them with a polite smile and a wink for Kara. And then Lena Luthor listened, mouth ever so slightly agape, as Jenna informed her of her stats. Lucy had thought this meeting might be a good idea, once Lena found out Kara was Supergirl. J'onn had reluctantly agreed and told Jenna to prep to brief her.

Kara pinched the bridge of her nose now. A deep red flush was creeping up her neck as Jenna read the notes she had prepared. Lena's eyes were wide and a little spooked. It probably wasn't the average workday that she got someone telling her all the kinds of erotica she was featured in.

"I can stop?" Jenna offered, halfway down her list, right in between the recurring themes of _Villainess Lena Turns and Works against Evil Family to Save Supergirl; Seduction Follows; Kidnapping Involved;_ and _Lena Luthor Seduces Supergirl for Questionable Purposes_. Lengthy subject lines, Jenna knew, but they were descriptive without being too scarring, at least. Well, maybe they were a little scarring. But Jenna left out a lot of the _really_ scarring stuff.

Lena's mouth snapped shut. "No, please, Agent Summers, if you feel, as Supergirl's, ah, behind-the-scenes PR, that it's important for me to know these things to stay on top of them," (Kara let out a small whimper, and Lena visibly winced at her own word choice. Lucy and Lena's assistant Jess both bit back highly professional snorts) "Then by all means, continue."

"Cool," Jenna said, mentally noting that she should probably give poor Lena a break and skip to the _Romeo and Juliet with a Happy Ending AU's_ before circling back around to _Supergirl (Unwisely?) gives her Heart (and a little something else) to Morally Gray Youngest Luthor._ "I can let you know the family-friendly ones if you want, but thought I'd get these out of the way first." Lena closed her eyes briefly. Yeah, maybe she'd finish it up with _Supergirl knows Youngest Luthor was Good All Along (and makes sure she knows it),_ or perhaps _Supergirl Saves Lena (again) and Lena Thanks Her Properly (again)_ just to end on a high note. Well, as high as you can for this. Which, speaking of, Lena looked like she wished she were high right now. Or at least, anywhere else.

On the couch, Lucy suppressed another snort as she looked at Jess' diligent notes. Jess resumed her frantic pace of note-taking, looking as though this was all of paramount importance. Lena suppressed another grimace and Kara put both hands up to cover her now-flaming face, muttering _why did it have to be me._

 

Alex had bad days too.

Jenna found Alex hyperventilating in a stairwell, pushing her hands through her hair endlessly, tugging on the ends with worrying ferocity.

"Alex?"

Alex's head whipped around, and she stood immediately, excuses pouring out of her mouth, but Jenna shook her head, reaching for her shoulder. "Alex, no, I heard the mission comms, I know it was close, it's okay, it's okay."

Alex sank back down to the stairs slowly, shaking. "I nearly lost him," Alex whispered. "He's just two weeks out of training, he almost got killed, it was too close, it was too close."

"I know, I know. Where's Kara?"

Alex shook her head. "She can't see this. Not now."

Jenna didn’t totally understand, but she trusted Alex. She sat down next to Alex slowly, pressing her shoulder into Alex's gently. "What do you need?"

Alex shook her head. "I don't know."

"Okay." Jenna was quiet for a minute, and though Alex's posture relaxed incrementally, she didn't seem too much better. She almost looked like a little kid, upset about something and needing a distraction. "Do you want me to tell you a story?"

Alex's response was surprisingly dry and coherent. "Is it going to be about my little sister seducing someone?"

Jenna chuckled, the sound echoing in the stairwell. "I have plenty of those if you'd like them, but no. I read one the other week about the bravest woman the author had ever seen. The author is a seventeen year old girl, and she was absolutely enthralled by the woman in black at Supergirl's side." Alex frowned, turning towards Jenna slowly, and Jenna nodded. "Oh yeah. She had red hair and moved like she was ready to murder someone to protect Supergirl and the author thought it was _awesome._ There have been nearly ten thousand hits on it already."

"Someone," Alex said quietly, "Someone wrote about _me?_ Someone saw me?"

Jenna gave her half a gentle smile. "Yeah. And they thought you were pretty damn awesome. They saw the way you protected everyone. They saw the way you didn't hesitate to give orders. They saw the way you were a leader and the way you made sure none of the civilians got hurt while Supergirl dealt with the bad guy."

Alex's face was puzzled, open, touched. "That's crazy," she said softly.

"What's crazy is that it took the citizens of National City so long to see you," Jenna corrected. "But you were always pretty good at staying behind the scenes when you wanted to be. There have been a few other writings about you, all pretty good. If you'd like them."

"Maybe," Alex said, in that voice that Jenna knew meant she wanted them but wouldn't admit to it.

"I'll make sure they're doubly clean and send them over," Jenna promised. The curious light in Alex's eyes was worth it. As was the line of unelaborated upon heart emojis Kara sent over that evening.

 

 

Jenna got the worst fic of her life one day. It had horrible grammar so bad it must have been deliberate, spelling mistakes like arse instead of ass that weren't quite spelling mistakes, but regional variables, and the impression of Kara was spot-on. Like, _spot. On._

Jenna felt horror seeping into her bones as she read the fifth quirk that was absolutely correct. The writer guessed that she worked as a reporter for CatCo during the day and worked with a clandestine government organization by night to keep Earth safe. It was horribly, horribly accurate. And that meant someone _knew._ That meant trouble.

"Winn," Jenna said, rushing into the control center. "Winn, we have a code Black."

"Black as in concerning?" Winn asked, tearing his eyes away from the screen and facing her.

"Yes," Jenna said, tossing the three-thousand word fic at him. "Black doesn't cover it. It's, it's Vantablack. Black 2.0. So black Anish Kapoor shouldn't be let anywhere near it."

Winn frowned skeptically, lightly as he wheeled towards her, catching the fic. "Okay, calm dow--whoa, this is accurate."

"I know!" Jenna snapped at him, pacing. Alex had spotted them and was walking over, eyebrows lowering in concern.

"What's going on?"

"Someone wrote a fic that's, it's--just read it," Jenna said, gesturing impatiently, and Winn handed it over.

Alex's eyes grew wide at the first sentence. "That's her neighborhood. What the hell?"

"I _know,"_ Jenna moaned.

"And that's the name of her coworker from the desk next to hers, how did they know this--I'm sorry Winn, _is something funny?_ "

Winn was struggling to contain a laugh. "No," he said, putting on a straight face. "No, not at all. This is very serious."

"Winslow Schott," Alex said, her voice dangerous and low, spinning Winn's chair so her arm was next to his head, her finger in his face. "Did you write an intentionally horrible fanfiction about Supergirl to set off the alerts here?"

Winn couldn't even form words, he was laughing so hard, and Alex sighed, deep and disgusted, straightening up. She looked at Jenna, martyred, and Jenna mirrored her expression, relief seeping in as she realized Kara's identity was _not_ in danger. Today.

"You didn’t even make it ten seconds before you broke," Alex said in disdain. "How long did it take you to write this?"

"We're framing it," Jenna added, and Winn sobered instantly.

"No!"

"Yes," Alex said, cottoning on. "Only after we read it aloud to J'onn."

Winn's horror made it all worth it.

 

 

Jenna began to comment on fics written by younger writers, trying to spread the positive vibes. Never, "I love your writing or your story," but, "I love what action you took. Comforting your friend like that, helping Supergirl in this way." Supergirl was all about empowerment, she reasoned. Kara found her at it one day and sat down with her for three hours, giggling and _awww_ 'ing and writing most of the comments.

"Can you imagine if we had a way to verify that it was you commenting?" Jenna asked _,_ selecting the next on her carefully-approved list of Green fics for Kara to read and comment. "I mean, the author would probably faint. Twice, at least. But that Supergirl was commenting on their writing about her…"

Kara chuckled. "I don't think that's a boundary either I or the writer ever truly want to cross, but I get the sentiment."

 

 

 

"I hear you met with Agent Summers."

"Mm." Cat swirled her drink. "I did."

Supergirl landed next to her on the balcony in the warm evening. "She briefed you on our latest phenomenon?"

"I wouldn't call it a phenomenon," Cat hummed, "But yes, she did."

"What would you call it, then?"

"It's Real Person Fiction," Cat said, and turned from watching the city in the night to let her eyes bore into Kara's instead. "How do you feel about it?"

Supergirl scuffed her boots, leaning on the balcony a healthy distance from Cat. "I don't know."

"Yes," Cat told her calmly. "You do."

"Fine," Kara said, examining her fingers. "I don't love it." Cat waited. "I don't like that people think about her like that."

"Her?" Cat asked curiously.

Kara shook her head. "I think it's no secret this isn't my whole identity, Cat."

Cat nodded slowly, clearly wondering lots of things and pushing the possibilities aside. "So you see Supergirl as an entity other than yourself, when not in the suit?"

"I don't know," Kara said, pulling her fingers together and yanking. "It's like my two hands sometimes. One signs my name, one holds my coffee. I need them both. I need them both to hold something heavy. Who I am in this suit and out, both personas affect the other." Kara sighed heavily. "I'm learning to separate them as right and left, but they're both still attached to me."

Cat leaned against the balcony, facing her. "And having someone write about your left hand while your right tries to go about their day…"

"They're not really writing about me," Kara said, turning her head to watch Cat. "They're writing about who they think I might be. The kids and the essay contests, the jokes, all those that are clearly real experiences, the ones where I'm just an entity passing by or someone that's strictly a superhero, none of those bother me. They're flattering, they're… reassuring, really, that my presence is welcome. But..."

"Is it the porn?" Cat guessed, her tone low and teasing, trying to put her at ease, and Kara huffed out a laugh.

"I try not to think about the porn," she admitted. "It's more the ones that… That put their thoughts on _me,_ and not in my abilities. Does that make sense?" She asked, tipping her head back to stare at the sky. "My other side is who I am. Supergirl is what I can do. So when they write about who I am, that's when it feels invasive. It's like, when they think they own me. When they forget I'm a person."

"Supergirl isn't a real person," Cat said gently. "She's real, but she's not a person the same way your other half is."

"Something like that," Kara said, exhaling heavily. "I'm still trying to figure it out. I can see most of it as a vehicle for their own desires. And I understand that I'm not a real person to them. I'm a blur in the sky, what catches them when they fall. I'm a survivor of a long lost planet, here to protect them. I'm a comic book hero. And the part of me that saves them, that's something I'm more than alright with them writing about, remembering their experiences, looking up to the person I work so hard to be, having fun thinking about what it would be like to fly and all that. My other half can be inspired by who I am when I put on the suit, too. It's like being an actress playing a character. But people writing about who I am when I take off the suit?" Kara shook her head. "It's different when it's a kid wondering about a superhero versus an adult with too much free time and a fixation. Supergirl might not be all the way real to them, because she's in the public eye, but _I'm_ still real. And I don't want people writing about who I am outside of Supergirl. They didn't ask and I never put that side up for public consumption."

"And they're writing about the people that surround you," Cat said softly, and Supergirl closed her eyes.

"They are," she agreed softly. "And when those people are stepping up, into the public eye, voluntarily, to save the city and do their best, it's fine then. When it's your experience that they interact with, you can write about them. It's not fine to fixate on what they do when they close their doors. They deserve their privacy."

Cat watched her quietly. "What if we could do something?"

Supergirl looked at her with a desperate kind of hope.

 

Cat Grant made a series of personal statements over the following months, firmly condemning any violations of privacy. She always ended with an aside about "this applies to people in the public eye, too. Don't be creepy." She kept a firm eye on what CatCo published, and wasn't afraid to talk to other news sources about breaches of privacy that technically didn't break the law.

It took months, but slowly, the amount of raunchy fics about Lena and Supergirl went down. Several other markers were obvious--the amount of written erotica about Supergirl in her civilian clothes went down, as did a lot of wondering about her day job. It wasn't stamped out, but it was a good start. Supergirl looked at her with such gratitude that Cat felt like melting.

 

 

Kara knocked on the door, and Jenna looked up.

"No," Jenna said, immediately, defensively. "I won't do it. I appreciate it, but I won't."

Kara raised her eyebrows quietly, and Jenna was hit for a moment with a realization that she had watched Kara _grow_ over the past couple years. It had been an honor. And she wouldn't give it up. She would not.

"I'm not taking the promotion," Jenna said steadily. "I'll take a raise if you want me to, and if you think I need the help you can give me a partner, but I don't need it. And I won't leave this place."

Kara sat down gently on the recliner, wearing an old sweater and jeans, no glasses and hair down, and Jenna watched her quietly, watched Kara Zor-El move around her space and knew how privileged she was to know this creature, to love this being, to see her at game nights and laugh with her at Thanksgiving and feel a part of her family, slowly and steadily integrated. "Okay," Kara said calmly. "I would appreciate you staying as well. I know they wanted you to work more in the other avenues you've helped create for the DEO. Like working with the Alien Mentorship Program."

"Amp?" Jenna asked. She shook her head. "No. I love that I was a part of its conception, but that's all you and Alex. Here. The stories are my place."

Kara leaned back in the recliner, knocking Jenna's leg gently with a doodled-on sneaker. "Why do you like the stories so much? Why do they mean so much to you?"

Jenna hesitated. She thought about all the years growing up. She hadn't been in an abusive home, but she had been in one that wasn't always happy. Books were her escape. "Putting our own experiences into something better, rewriting our stories to be happier, and those stories being someone else's escape… that's not a bad thing," Jenna said slowly, trying to feel out her words. "That will never be a bad thing. That's a deeply human thing. Sharing our stories, narrative, that’s something every culture has, everywhere. Our stories, sharing them, it helps us and others. The Alien Mentorship Program, finding the kids in abusive homes, all that good, that all came from storytelling, you know? From keeping records, from putting our souls into them, from having the courage to remember and to share. Does that make sense?"

Kara nodded, her eyes far away. "Yeah," she said softly.

Jenna nodded back, surer now. "And surrounding our characters with magic and heroes and wonder, that's natural. And Kara, you, you are all that magic, and you're _real,_ and you're _good. Of course_ they're going to write about you. How could they not?"

"Careful, Jenna Summers," Kara said, shaking her head and smiling a smile so soft Jenna thought she might melt. "Or I just might start writing fanfiction about _you."_

 

**Author's Note:**

> I always enjoyed the concept of citizens of National City writing about Supergirl. Why wouldn't they? She's awesome and a part of their experience. I went from there, and then had a lot of fun, and explored how Kara would feel about it. 
> 
> This might be my favorite thing I've written for this fandom. Can't put my finger on it, but I love it. The community interactions and making up the world within the world and all that. Hope it made you guys smile :)


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